Photo: ACI Sport
Alpine junior driver Kean Nakamura Berta will continue racing with Prema in Italian Formula 4 and the renamed E4 championship in 2025.
The London-born, Japanese-Slovakian driver graduated to cars a year ago after a glittering karting career, in which he won the CIK-FIA World Championship for OK Junior karts in 2021 and was European champion in the senior OK class the year after.
After contesting two rounds of F4 South East Asia with Prema at the end of 2023, he went on to fight team-mate Freddie Slater for the 2024 F4 United Arab Emirates title, winning two races and finishing just four points short.
In his subsequent European campaigns he came sixth in Italian F4 with a win at Paul Ricard, and in Euro 4 – which becomes E4 next year – he placed third overall and took the rookie title after an outright victory in the final round at Monza.
“I’m excited for another year,” he said. “Doing a second year in F4 I know what I’m aiming for this time, we’re not finishing second or aiming for anything but lower than first, it’s the aim. Just try to win everything. We will have the most experience and there are no excuses, I’ll have to do my job and win as many races as possible. Of course I’m happy to be racing with Prema again, it’s an amazing team, it’s always fun, I’ll make some new memories. Can’t wait to start the season.”
Van Amersfoort Racing has announced Maximilian Popov, Dante Vinci and Payton Westcott for triple campaigns in Formula Winter Series, E4 and Italian F4.
Maximilian Popov came 21st in Italian F4 and E4 in his rookie year of cars with PHM Racing, with which he also took in a F4 Central European Zone cameo.
Australian driver Vinci made his F4 debut with VAR in the Italian F4 finale at Monza, finishing 19th in the last race. Westcott, who comes from the USA, has been racing OK-N class karts in the Champions of the Future Academy Program, as a recipient of the F1 Academy Discover Your Drive scholarship.
Maffi Racing retains 2023 World karting champion Kirill Kutskov in its line-up after he became F4 CEZ runner-up with the team this season, and is also retaining Nathanael Berreby for a second year. Both will spend 2025 racing in Italian F4, which Berreby came 32nd in as a rookie while Kutskov contested the finale and scored enough points to be 24th in the standings.
The Technorace team is also set to return to the grid for the first time since 2020, when it competed in partnership with BVM Racing, by fielding Francesco Coppola. He was runner-up in the Formula X Pro Series for first-generation Tatuus F4 cars this year.